


Two By Two

by slightlyjillian



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-26
Updated: 2010-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyjillian/pseuds/slightlyjillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He hated the insecurity of being her second husband.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Two By Two

**Author's Note:**

> an intriguing little scene that I started years ago, enticing enough I wish I would continue it. I'm not sure it was ever shared.

Her lipstick stained the side of the wine glass. Rosy pink stained the napkin when she pressed it to her mouth. Her fingernail also had a faint pink paint. Her gown was a dark pink that seemed almost grey when the chandelier light dimmed and the candles flickered their lesser light upon those dining.

From across the table, Nichol could watch his wife's lips form words as they spilled carelessly over the soup, around the dinner rolls, between leaves of lettuce. Now and again, he witnessed the faint smile that showed her teeth for only a moment.

"Wouldn't you agree?"

Her last words came through distinctly, piercing his thoughts.

"Nichol?"

Her clear eyes reflected light, and he knew them to be a silver-chestnut not unlike her hair, which hid strands of aged responsibility in spite of her youth.

"If you insist." He had grown accustom to her inconsistent temperament. Once her personality had vacillated between the contradictions of ideals. At that time, the extremes had been enough that one self did not know of the other. While her subordinate and companion, Nichol could find neither reconciliation nor a cure for the diseased mind that plagued her. She fascinated him enough that he had tried. He had attempted to understand her and failing in that, he had lost her.

She laughed lightly, turning her fork inward toward her mouth. Her thin lips savoring the length of the metal and her eyelids lowered pleasantly. After a moment, when she had finished chewing and the conversation waited for her again, she set the silverware against the plate and leaned to one side so that the fabric of her dress slipped to show more of her bronzed shoulder.

"Nichol insisted that I let the gardener alone to his craft. 'That's why we're paying him' he says. But I just love the roses."

Nichol chewed the bit of meat in his mouth thoughtfully. He shrugged, as was expected when some of the company turned to assess his reaction. He swallowed, and their eyes met through the candles again--for just a moment, before she turned to the older woman next to her.

The dining room table that night was set long. Nichol sat at one end, farthest from the fireplace. To his right was the President recently re-elected and having brought news of the government. Next to the President, his wife refolded the napkin in her lap. Along the other side sat a younger couple, Trowa Barton, a self-made man, and his fiancée, Dorothy Catalonia, daughter of old money and old politics.

"Actually, our hosts, Une and Nichol introduced us."

The conversation slipped about thick like un-bottled mercury, and just as dangerous, Nichol decided. Lithe, blonde Dorothy had spoken last while patting Trowa Barton's near hand that rested on the table. Her eyes however, slipped around the silent youth and mischievously let her broad smile linger on her host. Nichol sat easily, for all appearances indifferent to her brief coyness.

"You seem well suited." The President's wife nodded--her sincerity rare among the given company.

"Thank you." Trowa spoke at last. Trowa had few words of his own, normally waiting for direct questions. Nonetheless, Nichol found the young man insufferable while his wife spoke nothing but congratulations.

"Young Master Barton reminds me of my first husband, and has similar fortitude for running our business while Nichol and I attend to a more comfortable life." Une's lips moved softly and without malice. In those words, Nichol found all the reasons to dislike the resourceful boy.

"Dorothy and Nichol have been friends since they were children," Une continued, her tone warm. However, the choice of her words interested the guests.

"Children? How old are you, sir?" The President settled back in his seat finished with eating, but did not relax.

"Twenty-eight."

"Dear girl, you are not so old." The President's wife chuckled around the edge of her wine glass.

"Nine years difference," Dorothy said easily. "Nichol was kind to me."

"You were amusing, yes." He took his drink in one hand, but declined from tasting it. Just wanting something to hold.

The meal ended. The time came for the President and his wife to leave and so they went. Guest rooms were made ready and the younger couple was invited to stay longer while Trowa prepared an annual report.

Nichol took the paper by the fireplace in the study. He offered a pipe to Trowa, but as expected, the younger man declined. Une kissed Nichol's forehead, just above his right eyebrow without leaving a mark, and excused herself to her room for the night. Dorothy complained that three was not enough company for cards, and took a book to read in bed.

***

Trowa found himself staring at the closed curtains. The smell of Nichol's pipe richly penetrated each breath he took and filled his head. Yet, he continued to stand, putting uncertain hands behind him and clasped each to the opposite wrist.

He wasn't used to receiving another's disfavor. The silence between himself and the older man worried him.

Silence and a generally positive expression had always been to his advantage before meeting Nichol. Silence most often interpreted as consent, and consent understood as affirmation. It also served him well to listen, and by listening he had managed to reinforce the success of Nichol's inherited business. Nothing he had done seemed to deserve Nichol's coldness.

"Something displeases you?" Trowa realized he had been staring at his host, noticing and finally commenting on the furrow in Nichol's brow.

"Generally everything," came Nichol's candid reply.

"Anything in particular?"

Nichol forcibly collapsed the paper into his lap and set his gaze on Trowa with disgruntled resignation. "Are you not getting enough attention between my wife and Dorothy?"

"I don't mean to impose," Trowa demurred, although, inside he felt a spark of irritation, which pushed his complacency. "Simply everyone else has retired and..."

Nichol raised an eyebrow into the fringe of his lengthy dark curls. "I offered you a smoke which you declined. Did you want the paper instead? I've finished." Nichol stood, tapping out what was left of his pipe and putting the damaged paper on the table to his right. "You can even have the seat if you'd like."

"I didn't mean to send you away," Trowa spoke more quickly, uncertain how to mend a relationship that had never started well. "Just a bit of conversation..."

"What is your ancestry? Gypsy?" Nichol said without warning. "Your features are dark yet soft like a woman."

Trowa bristled, the aggravation unfamiliar and unexpectedly causing his fingers to tremble, so he put them in his pockets. "You know I have no parents."

"True." Nichol nodded slowly, as if he'd forgotten to give it thought. Although, Trowa did not know what might have been truth--the insult or the forgetfulness. "But some couple created you. How curious that your eyes are green though. Perhaps you are not full gypsy."

"And your lineage?" Trowa replied, resisting to retaliate the insults for the evening.

"Thoroughly Russian. I should give you my full name... but no..." Nichol's expression changed from lively conflict to immediate boredom. "Enjoy the paper."

Trowa watched him leave. Feeling an inward chill even as he stood closer to the fire. The chill replacing the blind frustration that he'd never felt so strongly before.

***

Nichol walked through the hall leading from the study and toward the staircase up to the bedrooms. For a while, his footsteps echoed against the polished wood and between the walls until he slowed at the staircase. Part of the noise was due to his own stomping, a childish frustration that blossomed whenever he was left alone with Trowa Barton. Part because the boy conveniently seemed to have every talent, skill, happiness and Dorothy given to him. Part because the boy was a charmingly innocent of blame. Part because Barton's every word had whispered behind it Une's best compliment, "He reminds me of Treize..."

He hated the insecurity of being her second husband. He had waited for her. He loved her for years before, during and after her first marriage.

He hated the doubt that he married her too soon. That he married her without her love. That he had married her before he knew real love.

"I could hear you even in my room." Dorothy stood in her nightgown at the top of the stairs. Haughtily appraising him as he leaned against the lower railing.

"You're always saving that look for me." Nichol tried not to smile. "Do remember that I am your elder."

"Age means little when it comes to character or power." Dorothy waited for him as he climbed the stairs deliberately. The shadows could not betray the pure paleness of her skin or the moonbeam shine of her hair. She was a tall girl, but Dorothy still had to angle her head back when he at last stood level with her.

"And Barton, what sort of character or power does he have that impresses you?"

"Don't forget who introduced us." Dorothy crossed her arms, not stepping back even as Nichol approached her until a breath was all that was between them.

"You'll marry him to spite me?" Nichol surmised.

"Don't fancy yourself that important." Her retort was swift, but they understood each other.

"If you want sport, I'll play." Nichol pulled back, letting cool air disentangle the warmth their bodies had almost shared.

"You started this game," Dorothy laughed mirthlessly, tossing her hair.

"Don't act so old," Nichol said sadly.

"Old? Like your lady, do you mean? I quite thought you fancied older women." The texture of her words matched his sadness, and he watched as her eyes drifted to the bottom of the stairs. Her next breath came strong enough to lift her shoulders and bring them back down with new resolved. "Do kiss me goodnight, and I'll retire."

The moment to accept or deny her request passed without a word when she reached up to press her lips against his. Her softness remained quite warm even for her cool appearance as Dorothy slid back from where she come at her place by the railing as swiftly as she had moved.

"Goodnight, Dorothy." He said even as she retreated back to her room.


End file.
